What are the browser capabilities for the e-ink Amazon Kindle WebKit?

Question

It seems the Kindle’s new “experimental” web browser is pretty limited in features. Stacking even included bookmarks looks a bit rough. In one video, the user mentions that JavaScript is enabled in “advanced” mode, but there was no demonstration of what this means. In terms of writing this, the page only offers a quick paragraph on the limitations of international support.

What web standards does the Kindle WebKit support?

Answer 1

Kindle 3 handles Javascript, but not Flash, movies, or any other features. I have this with my Kindle 3 by creating this website - http://www.anysubjects.com, where I have compiled hundreds of great Kindle-friendly sites.

I set myself the task of choosing only those sites that were useful, and I could read without having to change any settings on my Kindle, i.e. I did not need to change the font size or screen settings.

Having done this, I created a website that clicks restrictions on the browser, but saves you a lot of time and frustration.

Answer 2

Returning to the Kindle 3.2.x firmware, the experimental browser fully supports JavaScript (ES3 specification), some CSS 2.x and 55 ratings (our 555 possible points) on HTML5Test.com. It more or less passes the Acid3 browser check by 100%. This puts it at a much higher level than Internet Explorer 8, with the exception of JavaScript performance tests.

Strictly speaking, this is not an HTML5-enabled browser, despite the lack of a non-zero rating on HTML5Test.com. It does not support any features of an HTML5 document, but at the same time supports relatively advanced features such as web workers, cross-domain messaging, and Cross-Origin resource sharing.

With our Kindle 2 with International 3G, we were able to check Yahoo, Gmail, Wikipedia and some Maps emails from a remote site in Taiwan on vacation. You can jailbreak the Kindle 2 to install the Kindle 3.x firmware. Any Kindle after Kindle 2 can be upgraded to the latest 3.x firmware and have a fairly functional, albeit archaic browser, compared to competing electronic ink devices.

Even the latest Kindle e-ink devices (firmware 5.8.x) rate only 152 (out of 555) on HTML5Test.com, along with Internet Explorer 9, which was 2 years behind competing browsers when it was released 6 years ago . They support some aspects of the JavaScript ES5.1 standard, but some aspects are missing / broken. It partially supports WebSockets, which makes it unsuitable for most web applications that use this feature, but does not support server-related events, which are fancy for a device in which battery life is critical. Amazon continues its story of what appears to be a deliberate mistake in introducing CSS2.1 and CSS3, and the browser will freeze or crash when trying to use popular reference sites such as Jetstream or Ringmark. One of the nice savings is the inclusion of support for Canvas, Local Storage and Canvas, which would make it possible to have games with decent functionality if their animations were optimized for electronic ink update rates. The Kindle browser does not support web standard touch events in the browser, but there are other control options that the developer could use.

As they say, even the Kindle 5.8.x firmware is a decent browser on the device with a week of battery life. It will intelligently display third-generation mobile phone versions (read: iOS and Android 2.x) on Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, and other major sites. Amazon can and should do better considering the prices they charge, but in the worst case, the jailbreak community is well compensated by the software.